Sunday, July 01, 2007 Mercado: Nine terrifying words By Juan L. Mercado Sidebar
“THE nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I am from government and I’m here to help,” US President Ronald Reagan once cracked.
Thus, Cebuanos were petrified silly after Cebu City Planning and Development Office’s Nigel Paul Villarete offered to help decide if “runaway growth” threatened the north district. That’s where Lahug voters thrashed Villarete’s boss: Mayor Tomas Osmeña.
After Gov. Gwen Garica insisted on value-for-value swap of lots, Osmeña retaliated: the City Council rubber-stamped his proposal to deep-freeze “Ciudad”: an upscale mixed-use commercial complex, on a 2.8-hectare province-owned lot in Banilad.
Councilors predictably did the mayor’s bidding. And so did Villarete, who claimed: His office needed to study Banilad traffic problems.
No one is conned by this chorus. “The voice is that of Jacob but the hands are those of Esau.” This is about pawns and politics, not Cebu development.
“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession,” Reagan said. “It closely resembles the first.”
Belatedly, City Hall realized targeting “Ciudad” opened it to accusations of blackmail. Villarete suggested a technical fig leaf to the Council: Expand the “moratorium on development” beyond Ciudad’s environs to the whole north sector. His office would craft a plan to address “runaway development.”
You mean to say planners are still studying growth patterns 70 years after Cebu got it’s charter, our Freeman colleagues across town snorted. “This city…did not just start developing overnight, for God’s sake.”
Cebu’s advances stem largely, not from government martinets, but from the brains, capital and sweat of the private sector, notes “Under Skies of the Color.” These include: artists, schools, multi-nationals to sidewalk vendors.
“Governments don’t solve problems; they merely re-arrange, then subsidize them.” That’s Reagan again.
The last thing Cebu needs is a “moratorium on development,” as Mayor Osmeña prescribes through pliant functionaries.
Malnutrition here stunts one out of every five kids. The poorest Cebuanos make do with two and a half centavos out of every peso; the affluent corner 31 centavos.
Cebu is strapped with the biggest liabilities of all 126 cities, due to South Reclamation Project yen loans. Foreign debt has hobbled basic services.
The city can’t even maintain Fuente Osmeña. Water is short. And so are jobs, books, classrooms, medicine, etc.
“The ‘quiet revolution’ in governance is getting the private sector to shoulder more of the development task,” the World Bank notes in “Entering the 21st Century.” “Government should instead trim its role to that of enabler.”
So, why do councilor and city planners (a.k.a Tomas Osmeña) ignore the reality and value of the private sector? And why does City Hall dig in, clenched-teeth, refusing to enter the 21st century?
History can be instructive.
The Commission on Audit, in July 2004, found City Hall lied to Cebuano taxpayers, over eight years, regarding yen loans.
Auditor Helen Hilayo bucked the use of 1996 exchange rate of P26-to-US$1 when the real rate had escalated to P56. A P4.3 billion IOU then was made to appear as P1.52 billion. The loan today exceeds P6.3 billion.
Tell the truth, COA said. “What for?” snapped then SRP manager Villarete.
Cebu would adopt current rates “only when it’s time to pay its loans in 2006.” But a world-is-flat mindset is the shakiest foundation for progress.
That mental outlook persists today in City Hall. No wonder “moratorium on development” idiocies are lofted without cringing.
Alas, they rehash what Reagan said governments do to economies: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
